The Paragon of Virtue
by Orangeblossom
Summary: 1st season; Jake gets a crush on Kira, which she unwittingly encourages when she agrees to be part of his school assignment to report on a Bajoran art exhibit.


The Paragon of Virtue

Major Kira Nerys, walking her daily patrol of the station, would have determinedly kept up her rapid pace and not stopped at the entrance to the newest addition to the Promenade, a gallery featuring the work of Bajoran artists, if Security Chief Odo hadn't made it a point to stand in her path.

She came to a sudden halt, putting out her arms to keep from plowing into Odo, and asked, exasperated, "What is it, Odo?"

"Security has had a week to work with this art exhibit," he told the Bajoran major without preamble. "I originally thought that one of my people stationed at the entrance and one at the emergency exit would be enough, but we have found that the sculptures, installed as they are, don't allow a clear line-of-sight from either position."

Kira sighed and stepped to the entrance to the gallery, tried to look through the exhibit to the other side and saw Security's problem. She stepped back outside briskly and turned to the shapeshifting security chief. "You know we can't move the sculptures. You saw the specifications yourself—Demar Tris was quite clear how she wanted her works situated in relation to each other." She started to walk away.

"I will point out again," Odo said, "as I did before we opened the gallery, that a collection this valuable should not be located in a high-traffic area like the Promenade. It increases the likelihood of vandalism and theft—"

She turned around. "And I'll point out—again—that it also increases the likelihood that Bajoran art will be seen and appreciated," she said as if reciting someone else's words. "That's the whole point of having a gallery here." When Odo fixed Kira with a baleful glare, she said with some heat, "I'm not arguing with you, Odo! If it were up to me you could do whatever you wanted with the sculptures—but it's not my decision, it's the Provisional Government's! Go read their manifesto or whatever they used to convince Commander Sisko to open this gallery!"

"If we can't move the sculptures, I'll have to take two officers off roving patrol and put them in here. There are too many places in here where a person could hide harboring ulterior motives having nothing to do with appreciating Bajoran aesthetics," he warned her.

"Good. Do whatever you think is necessary, Odo." She turned abruptly and started to walk away.

Odo noted her odd movements and tone of voice, as if being this close to the exhibit somehow bothered her. He called after her, "I note from the visitors log that you haven't seen the exhibit yet."

She stopped and turned. "I've been very busy, what with the extra traffic and—"

"That sounds like an excuse," Odo pointed out.

Kira marched back towards him and demanded, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, you've spent your life fighting for the chance for Bajor to be the great civilization it once was. And now, here for everyone coming through the station is proof that the Bajoran civilization is back and you don't have time to appreciate it? As a matter of fact, you seemed bound and determined to avoid the gallery just now if I hadn't stopped you, yet you know that as the highest ranking Bajoran officer on the station, the sight of you visiting the gallery would boost morale as well as attendance. I find that very odd."

"Odo—" Kira visibly struggled with her temper. "I fought for peoples' lives, for freedom. I've never had much use for—art."

"Neither have I," Odo said, and there was a gentleness in his voice that reminded Kira that it was only Odo's habit of speaking his mind that made him sound as if he was finding fault with her. Kira relaxed a little at the security chief's concern.

"I'm fine, really, Odo," she assured him in a low voice. She hesitated explaining further, and then said in a rush, "I don't know if you were aware of it, but there was an arm of the underground resistance that, instead of fighting the Cardassian presence, saved works of art by smuggling them off planet or to the caves in the polar regions. My older brother, Nishan, chose to join that arm of the resistance and I—never understood why he risked his life for _things_, instead of people."

She took a deep breath, then said with a lighter tone, "Don't worry, I'll find my way to the exhibit eventually, Odo."

"See that you do. Then maybe you can explain it to me."

Kira actually smiled at his comment. Satisfied, Odo dismissed her with a stiff nod of his head, knowing from experience that once aberrational thinking was pointed out to Kira, she worried at it like a palukoo worried at a caterpodd—until it got to the heart of it.

Kira continued with her patrol at a more sedate pace, checking each Promenade access vent that was marked for regulator upgrade. As she walked past the Replimat, she caught sight of Lieutenant Jadzia Dax sitting alone looking forlornly at several plates of food in front of her. Kira went inside, not just because as first officer the well-being of the crew was Kira's duty, but because she was becoming very fond of the Trill and was actually starting to think of her as a friend.

"Hi, Dax."

"Huh?" Dax roused herself and looked up.

"I said hi," Kira repeated with a smile, then gestured to the plates, three of them empty, the other four still full, and said with only a touch of irony, "You feeling okay? You've hardly eaten a thing."

The Trill heaved a sigh and put her napkin on the table. "I guess I sort of lost my appetite."

"Besides the fact that the replicators are making everything taste like that horrible oatmeal O'Brien loves so much, is there any particular reason why?"

Dax smiled at the major's small joke and gestured for her to take a seat. "It's Jake," she explained.

Kira sat down across from Dax. "Jake Sisko?"

Dax nodded. "Have I ever told you that Curzon and Jake were such good friends that Jake used to call him 'Uncle Curzon'?"

"Yes, you have."

"Well, Jake came in for a bite to eat after school today and I just tried to start a conversation, you know, to catch up with him. Sometimes Curzon and Jake would get up early in the morning and go fishing and as the light went from cold morning gray to the warm glow of sunset they'd sit and maybe not catch a single fish but they'd just talk and talk and talk, about everything. There's no time like that anymore, Kira, but I do what I can, so I asked Jake how school was going—"

Kira's dark eyes shone with amusement at the Trill's habit of rambling when she talked; it was one of the ways the symbiont's immense age manifested itself in its otherwise youthful host. Dax went on, "—and he kind of shrugged and then he didn't even get anything to eat, he said he had to get going so he could work on his homework. So I asked him what his assignment was and he said it had to do with the new Bajoran art exhibit and I got really excited, you know, because Leela Dax was quite the artist, too, but he barely had two words to say to me and then just about ran out of here!"

Kira said carefully, "But you said yourself that it was Jake and Curzon who were such good friends, not Jake and Jadzia."

"Jake didn't meet _me_ until we both arrived at the station," Dax admitted. "I know he has to get to know me, but he's been acting like he can't even stand to be around me!"

"Dax, that's not your fault! That's _nature_." Kira leaned across the table, looking intently at the Trill, wanting her to understand. "There's a world of difference between an old Uncle Curzon and a young Aunt Jadzia. It takes time to adjust. But as you and Jake get to know each other again, you'll be friends again. It's a matter of time, that's all."

Dax held Kira's gaze, then the Trill looked down briefly as she sorted her thoughts. Kira watched anxiously, until Dax's head came back up and she gave Kira a small smile.

Kira grinned at Dax in return and jerked her head in the direction of Quark's. "Come on. Let's go get a drink."

Dax started to get up, but at the sight of Kira's grin the symbiont inside Dax stirred. Dax chided Kira gently, "You know, you really should save that smile for special occasions."

"My smile?" the Bajoran asked, the same grin still lighting up her whole face. "Why?"

Dax looked at the facial expression that had managed to get a reaction out of the centuries-old symbiont and put a calming hand on her middle where the symbiont resided. Her eyes twinkled as she explained, "Because in the wrong hands, it could quite possibly be lethal!"

* * *

Nog and Jake sat at the table under the stairs in Quark's bar, trying to work on their homework but mostly laughing and jostling each other.

"Okay, okay," Jake said, trying to be serious again. "The art exhibit assignment isn't due until next week, so we've got to work on 'Hamlet.' Do you know your lines, _Marcellus_?" he asked, calling Nog by his character's name in the play.

"No, _Horatio_!" The young Ferengi went on eagerly, "But if you memorize my lines as well as yours so you can give me hints when we—"

"Nog, you're going to embarrass us in front of the whole class!"

"How can I memorize something when I don't even know what it means?" He looked at his compu-padd and read a line. "'This bird of dawning singeth all night long.'" He checked the footnotes to see what a bird of dawning was, and didn't understand the definition. "What's a rooster?"

"An Earth bird that vocalizes when the sun comes up."

Nog said sourly, "Stupid bird."

Jake couldn't help giggling at Nog's assessment and they both started jostling each other again. Then suddenly Nog froze and asked in a loud whisper, "Have we done something wrong?"

Jake froze, too. "I don't think so. Why?"

"Ever since Lieutenant Dax and Major Kira came in they've been looking at us. If we haven't done anything wrong, then it must mean something else."

Jake knew why the two women were looking and felt a little guilty about his curtness to Dax, but still found it hard to be around her. He leaned back in his chair and his answer was resentful. "Like what?"

"Like..." A new gleam came to Nog's eyes. "...they are interested in us." He leaned across the table and breathed, "_Romantically_ interested."

Jake jerked back as if stung. "_What_?" he demanded.

"They keep looking this way and talking to each other. That means they're discussing us. What else is there to discuss except our good looks, our—"

Jake rolled his eyes and fought the urge to physically slap some sense into his friend's Ferengi head. "Nog! Think! Major Kira, the first officer? The person who _created_ new curses just for us when she caught us without authorization inside a runabout? And Lieutenant Dax, the science officer? The person who—"

Jake stopped. He actually couldn't think of anything bad to say about the Trill, who had been unfailingly friendly every time they had met. The only problem he had with her, in all truth, was that she wasn't Curzon.

Nog interrupted, saving Jake the trouble of thinking of a good reason not to believe Dax was interested in them. "Hu-mon, don't you think Lieutenant Dax is—" the young Ferengi searched for words, found them in the terminology of the elders he worked with every day. "—a most exquisite creature?"

"It's not that! It's just—she's _Dax_," he explained lamely.

Nog shook his head. "Didn't you see the way she looked at me?"

"She looked at _us_," he pointed out. "They're _both_ looking at us."

"And why? Because we are attractive to them!" Nog reasoned, rubbing his hands together triumphantly.

"Hey, Nog, I finished my drink," Jake pointed out, wanting to change the subject. "Can you go get me another one?"

"I am off duty, hu-mon. Get it yourself."

"But if _you_ get it, you might get a discount."

"Where do you think my salary comes from, anyway?"

Jake sighed and gave in. "Okay. Here, give me your glass. I'll get you one, too."

* * *

Jake had been standing at the bar for some time trying to get Quark's attention when Major Kira walked up, and then the Ferengi proprietor, all alacrity, hurried over to the Bajoran, fawning, "The lovely Major Kira! And what can I get for you today?"

"I believe Mr. Sisko was here first," Kira informed Quark.

"That's okay," Jake mumbled. Years of being a Starfleet brat had accustomed him to taking a back seat to officers.

"No, it's not okay, Mr. Sisko, you were here before I was and you should be served first," Kira said firmly. "Quark, don't be so obvious in your obsequiousness."

Quark bowed his head stiffly to the major, then he turned to the young Human. "Well, _Mister_ Sisko," he said with exaggerated courtesy, "what can I get for you?"

"Um—two sparkling cehena juices, with extra soda water, please."

"Right. Of course." Quark gestured expansively. "Every single alcoholic beverage known to the Alpha Quadrant is right behind this counter, and you want the one thing I have to go in the back for." At Kira's glare Quark put his hands out placatingly and said, "Not that I mind!" He took Jake's glasses and left, muttering, "I can use the exercise."

Jake wasn't sure if Kira had done him a favor or not. But he knew the proper response. "Thanks, Major."

Kira had offered to get the drinks so she could sound the young Human out for Dax, but as she looked up at Jake—and up and up—she was suddenly taken back to another time, when a ten-year old Kira Nerys had looked up and up at a twelve-year old Kira Nishan, who had seemingly overnight grown another half-meter after years of their arguing eye-to-eye with each other.

Kira brought herself back to the present and commented wryly, "I think you've grown a little since you came aboard."

"A little," Jake admitted, self-consciously hunching over the counter.

"You're turning into quite the young man, Mr. Sisko."

His head jerked up and he looked at her, surprised. She was grinning at him.

He forgot how to breathe.

The only expressions Major Kira had ever favored him with ran the continuum from her relatively neutral looking-through-you stare to the lividness that accompanied her full arsenal of invective. But now all Jake could see was the light in Kira's eyes, and the delight in her smile, and he felt as if he were floating apart from time and space, in a small, small world that only contained Kira.

Then as quickly as the smile appeared, it was gone, and Jake wondered if he'd imagined things. He tested his voice, afraid it wouldn't work. "Uh—" he said, stopped as breath filled his lungs again, then went on, "That 'Mr. Sisko' stuff—I'm just Jake. You can call me Jake."

"All right, Jake." She smiled at him again. His heart stopped. "But you're Mr. Sisko as well. You're a young man, and you deserve a young man's respect. But when we're off duty, I'll call you 'Jake' and you can drop the 'Major,' okay?"

"Okay," he agreed in a small voice.

"...with _extra_ soda water, was that correct, Mr. Sisko?" Quark asked through gritted teeth as he plunked two glasses down on the counter.

"Uh—yeah." Jake dug into his pocket for some money and when he placed the coins on the counter realized that his hand was shaking.

"And now what can I get for you, Major?" Quark asked, ignoring Jake and turning his charm on the Bajoran. "What would refresh you and your Trill friend? Let's see, the last time she was here she had a...Mizien—no, she had some tranya, over, with a twist, and you had a...now, it's coming to me, give me a moment here—"

"You know," Kira said, her dark eyes becoming impenetrable, her tone hard as she stared at the Ferengi, "if you used your considerable energies for a noble cause instead of for spying on your patrons, who they're with, what they've been drinking and what they're talking about for all I know—"

Quark raised a finger, corrected her, "I haven't mastered the art of lip reading from this distance yet."

"—I might have to respect you. But since there's about as much chance of that as a Ferengi on the planet Vulcan staying away from—"

"Now, Major, you wound me!"

Kira raised her voice. "Name _one_ noble cause—and that means a cause in which you had no monetary stake in the outcome—"

"'Monetary stake' can be interpreted in any number of—"

"The day you can give me a straight answer—"

Jake grabbed his drinks and walked as quickly to his table as possible so there was less chance to drop them. He put them down and spilled a little on Nog's homework assignment.

"Hey!" Nog yelped.

"Sorry, Nog." Jake slipped into his chair as his knees gave way. He felt like he'd run the thousand meter dash. Underwater.

The Ferengi frowned up at his friend. "I didn't think you could do this, but—you seem a little pale."

"I do?" Jake took a deep breath, pressed hot hands to his cold face and then gripped his soda. He wasn't quite sure what had happened, and he tried to tell Nog. "Major Kira made your Uncle Quark serve me before he served her and—"

"Ah." Nog nodded wisely. "Uncle Quark and Major Kira always fight."

"They do? Yeah," Jake agreed, thinking back to Quark and Kira's exchange right before Jake left the counter. Very different from his own conversation with the major.

Very, very different.

A strange, scary exhilaration filled him as he looked across the bar and saw the Bajoran walk back to her table with two mugs. He'd give anything to see her smile like that again. As if the mere sight of him gave her incredible joy. As if they shared a wonderful secret. As if no one mattered but him.

"...I hate art," Nog was saying when Jake again paid attention to what the Ferengi was saying.

"What kind of art?"

"Any kind of art," Nog said sourly. "Why does Mrs. O'Brien give us such impossible assignments?" He waved his compu-padd in front of the Human's nose for emphasis. "First we have to memorize a scene from 'Hamlet,' then we have to visit the new art exhibit with someone we don't go to school with." The Ferengi stated, "All I know is that good art brings good profit. Bad art brings bad profit."

Jake sighed and tried to concentrate on the matters at hand. "Well, put that away, Nog. We have to do our scene in front of the class _tomorrow_!"

"I don't see the point. Hamlet's dead, anyway."

"Well, Mrs. O'Brien said that on one level the play's about dead people, but on another level it's about something universal."

The Ferengi looked with narrowed eyes at his friend. "Do you know what she meant by that?"

"Not really. Come on. 'This bird of dawning singeth all night long,'" Jake coached.

Nog screwed his eyes closed, the better to concentrate, and said rapidly, "'This-bird-of-dawning-singeth-all-night-long-and-then-they-say-no-spirit-dare-stir-abroad-the-nights-are...'" He grimaced, trying hard to remember the rest of the next line.

Jake's attention wandered as Nog's silence went on and on and the Human asked, "Who are you going to get to go to the exhibit with you?"

Nog gave up his attempt and shrugged. "My father, I guess. How about you?"

"I guess I'll get my dad, too," Jake said out loud. But his eyes involuntarily turned to a table near the entrance to the bar, where Major Kira talked to Lieutenant Dax.

"Jake's very sweet," Kira told the Trill as they sipped their drinks. "But he's probably not the boy Curzon remembers, anyway. I think he's as tall as you now, if not taller. He's growing up, in all senses of the term."

Dax contemplated her drink. "It's nice to be here to see Jake grow up like this. Coming into adulthood is a very special time for Humans. I just wish Jake and I were closer so I could share it with him," the Trill sighed.

"Don't try to recapture what you used to have, Dax," Kira advised. "Start from the beginning, like I did when I talked to him at the bar, and go from there."

Dax nodded and smiled warmly at the Bajoran. "Thanks for being here with me, Kira. You ready to go?"

"Just about." Kira tipped back her mug for one more swallow.

Dax cast a last glance at Jake's table, hoping to make eye contact and let him know she wanted them to be friends. To her surprise, Jake was looking back. She started to smile—and then realized Jake wasn't looking at her. With a start she realized she knew the look on Jake's face, and she looked quickly at Kira. Then a slow grin spread on the Trill's face.

* * *

Commander Benjamin Sisko sat at his desk in his quarters that night and frowned.

He was trying to make sense of Chief O'Brien's reports regarding the proposed upgrades of environmental regulators and was carefully rotating diagrams to see where Starfleet tab A would fit into Cardassian slot B. But his son Jake kept spouting odd bits of Shakespeare and prowling around as if he couldn't stay still, popping into Ben's peripheral vision just when Ben thought he had a handle on a piece of equipment, breaking his concentration and forcing Ben to start from scratch again. And again. And again. And—

Ben turned off his monitor with an impatient movement, took a deep breath, steepled his fingers to steady himself and watched his son. Jake sat down on the arm of the sofa facing away from him and threw himself backwards into the sofa, his long legs dangling over the arm. Now his son was hidden from view, but there was a distinct "thunk, thunk, thunk" sound accompanying the recited blank verse, as if he was bouncing his head off the sofa seat.

"Jake?" Ben called, his voice even.

(thunk) "'And then they say no spirit dare stir abroad, the nights are'—Yeah, Dad?" (thunk)

"Is everything all right?"

(thunk) "Sure. 'The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike'—Why?" (thunk, thunk)

"Because it's not every night you try to beat yourself senseless against the sofa."

"Oh." Jake's head popped up. "Sorry, Dad." He gave his father a sheepish grin.

"That's okay. I'm done for the evening," Ben decided with a smile, getting up from behind his desk and walking over to sit beside Jake. "So what's on your mind?"

Jake sat up to make room for his father. "Something happened today."

"Oh?" Ben sat down.

"Has someone ever—" Jake stopped, sat forward and held out his hands, looking for words. "Have you ever known someone, but not really known them? I mean, you know someone for a while, and you think you know them, but not really?"

Ben considered. "Sometimes I feel that way about Dax."

Jake immediately shook his head and sat back. "Not like that."

Ben nodded encouragement. "Okay. Just go on."

"Well, today—I mean, I've known her since we arrived, but somehow I never thought—"

"Ah," Ben said, and he smiled warmly at his son. _Now_ he knew what this was about. Seeing that his father had figured it out, Jake relaxed, knowing he didn't have to fight so hard to make everything clear. "Who is she, Jake?"

"I—I don't want to say, not until she agrees to go out with me," Jake said shyly. "That way you don't have to feel sorry for me if she says no and you see her around."

"I'd never feel sorry for you; only sorry for her if she didn't want to get to know how wonderful you are."

Jake ducked his head in embarrassment at the warmth in his father's voice. Ben propped his elbow on the sofa back and his head in his hand, the better to gaze proudly at his son. "So tell me about her," Ben said.

"Uh—she's Bajoran."

"Uh-huh, go on."

"She's shorter than I am—"

"I will be pretty soon, too!"

"Dad!" They laughed together. "She—I swear, Dad, she smiled at me and I felt like—like—I don't know, I've never felt that way before!" They laughed again.

"So she's never, ever smiled at you?"

"No! I used to think she hated me!"

"It's like that sometimes, Jake. Your mother didn't like me when she first met me."

"That's right." At Jake's thoughtful expression, Ben hastened to say,

"Now don't get any ideas, I'm not saying you should get married—"

"Dad! I haven't even asked her out!" Jake gave his father a look of outraged indignation. "Even _I_ know better than that!"

"Okay, okay. You know your old man—always leaping to unwarranted conclusions."

"You worry too much," Jake told him seriously.

"I can't argue with that. So go on. Tell me more."

And Jake eagerly told his father about the mysterious Bajoran woman who had captured his heart.

* * *

The next morning before school, Jake sat in his and Nog's favorite people-watching place, on one of the walkways above the Promenade, and waited. He'd been waiting for so long, Odo had rousted him twice for "dangling." But finally Major Kira came into view and Jake leaped to his feet and hurried down the stairs, running a hand over his short hair as if it needed to be smoothed and then tugging on the front of his jumpsuit before he stepped out into the Promenade, where Major Kira had stopped at the jumja vendor's counter. She was looking at the new sign the vendor had made, which read—"'Happy Jumja'?" she asked, just to make sure.

The vendor shrugged. "Never met an _un_happy one; have you?"

"Well, no," she had to admit.

Jake cleared his throat. "Major Kira?"

She turned around, and smiled when she saw it was him. It was only an echo of the grin from yesterday, but it was enough for Jake to have to clamp a hand on the rim of the vendor's counter to steady himself. "Well, Mr. Sisko!"

"Jake. It's Jake, remember?"

She nodded. "Right. We're not on duty yet." She put a hand on his arm. "Hi, Jake. How are you today?"

"Fine." He thanked his voice for not squeaking, but as he felt the warmth of her hand through his sleeve, he wondered if this was how someone felt before they fainted.

"Glad to hear it." She took her hand off his arm to gesture at the artfully arranged sticks. "Do you like jumja?"

"Not really." He sounded almost apologetic, but the Bajoran shrugged good-naturedly.

"I guess it's an acquired taste," she said.

"Um. Major?"

"Yes, Jake?" She asked the question with her full attention, with her shining dark eyes focused on his face, with her slim body leaning towards him...

"I was wondering—" He swallowed, remembered his memorized speech and blurted out, "—we have a school assignment to view the art exhibit with someone who's not in school with us and I was wondering, since you're Bajoran and your insights would be different from mine, as well as helpful to me and my assignment, I was wondering if you'd see it with me."

Kira was pleased that her chance conversation with him the night before had so soon borne fruit and that he was, in his own way, warming up to her. After all, she had done this for Dax—but before that thought of meddling could go any farther, she looked at his youthful face, his eager expression and recalled how she'd briefly seen her brother Nishan in him. She felt an unexpected affection for the young Human and suddenly wanted him as her friend, apart from anything she might try to do for him and Dax.

Jake watched as a slow, fond smile spread over Kira's face as she looked at him, and a tingling began somewhere in his feet and worked its way all the way up to the roots of his hair.

"You know," she said, "Odo and I were talking about the exhibit just yesterday."

"What a coincidence, huh?" Jake asked.

"Oh, there's no such thing as coincidence," Kira countered. "There is purpose behind what seems to be random circumstance, the Prophets see to that." Even as Kira quoted from a lesson learned long ago, a thought suddenly occurred to her. The Prophets were giving her the opportunity, through Jake, to finally come to terms with the decision Nishan had made so long ago, a decision she'd never understood. She asked, "When were you thinking of visiting the exhibit?"

"Tonight? After dinner?"

Kira thought. "That works. Sure. After all, if you intend to do something, it's a good idea just to set a date and do it." Kira ventured, "Do you want me to see if Lieutenant Dax is free, too? I understand Leela Dax was quite an—"

"No!" he yelped, then said more indifferently, "No, uh, that's okay."

Well, at least she had tried. "Okay. Just the two of us, then," she assured him. "Did you want to meet at the exhibit entrance at about 1900 hours?"

"Uh—why don't we grab a bite to eat beforehand?" He shrugged to indicate it was no big deal whether she agreed to go to dinner or not. "Say, 1800 hours?"

"Sure." She smiled again. "I'll see you at the Replimat then, Jake."

"I'll see you then." Jake let go of the rim of the counter and as casually as possible walked down the corridor. As soon as he turned at the junction leading to the school, he sagged back against a bulkhead, took a deep breath and then punched his fist into his open palm, eyes tight shut with delight.

* * *

"...after our staff meeting yesterday, and after I spent all night going over the plans to refit the environmental regulators, guess what arrived from Starfleet today," Ben Sisko said to the assembled staff at the Ops console.

Doctor Julian Bashir guessed gamely, "Environmental regulators?"

"That's not standard Starfleet procedure when you're out this far from Command," Dax informed him gently. "_My_ guess is that we didn't get our complete order."

"_My_ guess is that we got something completely different," Kira countered.

"You're both right," Chief Operations Officer Miles O'Brien fumed, "we got _one_ piece of equipment that _might_ be suitable for some type of replicator upgrade."

Odo clapped slowly, and everyone turned to look at him. "_My_ guess is that something is better than nothing, when nothing on this station is working correctly," he informed them all.

"Odo, unfortunately, is right," Ben said. "So, we go to Plan B. Doctor Bashir, you can put your equipment back in front of those access vents in the infirmary. Chief O'Brien is figuring out a way for the station's Cardassian equipment to accept something Starfleet-configured, and Dax, if you could lend him your assistance—"

"We can run simulations in one of the science labs," Dax confirmed.

"—Major, you have the unenviable task of informing everyone on the station that there might be some down time involved in the next few days," Ben went on. "Tell the Promenade vendors that we'll try not to have it happen during peak hours but—"

"Understood, sir," Kira told him.

"Odo, since we're only installing one piece of equipment instead of the twenty we thought we were, reconfigure your security roster accordingly." The shapeshifter nodded. "Any other business?" Ben looked at each of them and saw there wasn't any. "Good. Dismissed."

As O'Brien turned towards the lift, Odo asked him, "What systems exactly will be affected by the upgrade?"

The Human shrugged. "Well, it depends on how we can get it to work with the equipment already in place. It could affect anything from—the holosuites to the laundry chutes to the food slots to the—"

"Higher resolution holograms, cleaner laundry, and lydohrberry pie that actually tastes like lydohrberry pie," Bashir mused. "I could live with that..." The three men walked together towards the lift.

Dax would have followed them but Kira stepped up next to her and said, "Dax, Jake asked if I'd go to the art exhibit with him and I tried to get you invited along too but it didn't work. I'm sorry. But I've been thinking, that doesn't mean you can't 'coincidentally' be there at the same time. Now, we're meeting for dinner at 1800, then—"

"Excuse me." Both women looked at Ben. "Who is meeting for dinner at 1800?"

"Your son Jake and I," Kira said. "Didn't he tell you?"

"Major. In my office. Now! You too, Lieutenant!" Ben snapped, waiting impatiently for them to precede him. Dax and Kira hustled up the stairs, exchanging bemused looks as Ben steered them towards the comfortable chairs in the office's alcove. "You'll excuse my abruptness, but this is clearly not for public consumption," he explained, looking at the Trill. Dax recognized the devilish gleam in his eyes and relaxed, smiling knowingly at him as she took her seat.

Ben leaned back in his chair, rested a finger on his cheek and simply grinned at Kira.

The Bajoran, sitting at attention on the edge of her chair and waiting for a show of temper, was completely mystified by his manner. She shot a wary glance at Dax out of the corner of her eye, but the Trill was no help. The silence stretched until Kira couldn't stand it anymore and she ventured, "Sir?"

"Major Kira," Ben answered, still grinning. "So _you're_ the Paragon of Virtue."

"I'm sorry?" she asked, still not in on the joke.

"You're the woman Jake told me about last night, but he wouldn't divulge her identity until she agreed to go out with him." At her blank expression Ben went on, as if clarifying himself, "Kira Nerys, the Paragon of Virtue, the most radiant being in the galaxy, the woman I should worship if only I knew in which direction to bow!"

Kira, nonplussed, hastened to explain, "Commander, if you're talking about me having dinner with Jake, it's not—it's not a 'date'! He's doing a school assignment on the art exhibit and he wanted my input as a Bajoran. I even tried to get Dax involved, since Leela Dax was an artist—this is all about Dax and Jake, not me!"

"No," Dax said with a small smile. "It's actually about a young man and his first big crush."

Kira stared at the Trill—who looked so serene, so certain of her knowledge—incredulously. Then the Bajoran hoisted herself out of her chair and began to pace, her complexion turning a hue somewhere between the red of her uniform and the red of her hair. "How could this possibly happen? I've never given Jake—given _anyone_ a reason to think I'm—that they—"

Ben looked around Kira at Dax. "Jake did say that he thought Kira hated him—"

"See?" the major asked, relieved.

He went on, "—but then last night she 'smiled' at him. And then, Old Man, it's a whole new ball game."

Kira's pacing became more rapid until she suddenly stopped and demanded, "Dax, why didn't you _do_ something?"

"I _did_ warn her about her smile," the Trill informed Ben, ignoring Kira's scowl. "Apparently, when the Paragon of Virtue smiles, she steals men's hearts away. But she never told me she liked younger men."

"_Much_ younger men," Ben added.

Kira looked at the two of them trying to stifle their amused grins. "You're both enjoying this far too much!" she accused, and started pacing again as she relived her conversation with Jake that morning. She groaned, "Oh, I don't believe this! I even used the word 'date,' I said, 'just the two of us'—I made a date with the station commander's son!"

"What are you going to do?" Dax asked.

"Do?" Kira stared at Dax. "What else _can_ I do? I'm having dinner with him and going to the exhibit. And—acting normally." At Dax's grin Kira countered, "Do I have a choice? I gave him my word. I don't go back on my word."

"That's good to know, Major. Because if you break my son's heart, I'll have to personally hunt you down and kill you."

Shocked, Kira whirled to face Ben—and saw the glint in his dark eyes. Kira stood ramrod straight, her face absolutely composed. "Understood, Commander."

"Good."

"Permission to report for my duties?" she asked formally.

"Permission granted. Dismissed."

The hint of a smile escaped her before she turned smartly on her heel and left Ben's office. Ben watched her go and allowed himself a shared grin with Dax. He picked up his baseball and with a quick twist of his wrist chucked it to Dax.

Dax caught the ball and tossed it back. "So how does it feel to be one, too, Benjamin?" she asked.

"One what?"

"Old Man," she said.

Ben paused before he tossed the ball to Dax again. "You're right," he admitted. "I'm feeling mighty old today. Jake _dating_!"

"And where will it all end," Dax teased him. She threw him the ball.

"Let's get back to you, Old Man." Ben held the ball, checking the stitches on it. "What was it Kira said about you and Jake?" He looked up at the Trill and saw her expression change. He threw her the ball.

She held it in her two hands, examining it carefully, not meeting his eyes. "I feel like Jake's been avoiding me. I know why, and I know that time has a way with these sorts of thing, but it still hurts a little."

"It wasn't easy for me, either, Dax." he reminded her.

"But you didn't reject me, Benjamin."

"No. Because even thought Jadzia was a new host, I knew there was a bedrock, a constant, in Dax. Jake knows that, too." As Dax looked up, Ben reassured her, "I _know_ he knows that. And when he knows it in here—" He tapped his chest. "—he'll have his old friend back, _and_ a very good new friend, too. Just like I do."

"O'Brien to Dax," the intercom called. Dax and Ben continued to hold each other's gaze as she tapped her combadge and answered,

"This is Dax."

"I've got a few ideas for simulation runs; you available now?"

"I'm on my way, Chief."

She tossed the baseball to Ben and arose from her chair. "Thank you, Benjamin," she said warmly.

"Any time, Old Man."

Dax left, and Ben got up from his chair and looked out the viewport behind his desk. _Old man, indeed_, he thought to himself.

* * *

After her shift, Dax went to her quarters, looking forward to a nice, relaxing evening after spending the day with Chief O'Brien. His intuitive way of working with a problem, often unconsciously thinking three and four steps ahead of what he was actually saying, had made it difficult for the Trill to program simulations to his specifications and had left her with a slight headache and swimming visions of intricate circuitry even when she closed her eyes.

She went to the replicator and ordered, "Raktajino, iced." A Bolian martini appeared instead. Her eyebrows went up, and then she remembered that O'Brien had insisted on trying out one or two possibilities before he called it a day and he must have been fiddling with the food slots. She nodded, amused, and took the delicate glass to the table near the sofa.

Just the other day she'd located one of Tobin Dax's favorite holotapes in the entertainment databanks and she was curious what Jadzia's reaction would be to it. She took off her boots, called up the holotape and curled herself into a corner of the sofa with martini in hand, settling in.

The intercom sounded. "Kira to Dax."

She tapped her combadge. "This is Dax."

"Dax, come to my quarters and bring every last piece of clothing you own."

"Bring every—" Dax started, puzzled, but the comline was already dead. Shrugging, the Trill put down her drink, turned off the holotape, pulled her boots on and went to her closet. There simply wasn't much that surprised her anymore.

Humming to herself, she pulled outfits off hangars and out of drawers and tossed them onto the bed, then scooped the whole lot into her arms and walked carefully down the corridor to Kira's quarters. She tried to push the "admittance" buzzer but her arms were so full she couldn't touch it. "Kira!" she called through the door instead. "It's Dax! Let me in!"

Kira opened the door and hissed, "Can't you yell any louder? I don't think they heard you on Upper Docking Pylon Two!" Before Dax could think of a retort the Bajoran yanked the Trill inside and the door slid shut behind them.

"What's this all about?" Dax asked.

"I don't have much time, Dax, just—"

"I'm dropping everything right here—" Dax suited her actions to her words, "—until you tell me—"

As soon as Dax's arms were free and the pile of clothes no longer obscured her vision, she saw the alcove next to the laundry chute. Normally, dirty clothes went down the chute, were reduced to their component fibers so dirt could be removed, then clean clothes were rematerialized into the alcove. But Kira's alcove contained, not reconstituted clothing, but a large pile of thread.

"—oh, no," Dax breathed. "O'Brien strikes again!"

Kira gestured dramatically. "Silly me, I hadn't done laundry in two weeks and threw everything I owned in the chute this morning. I should have known the chutes would go off-line, the way my day's been going!"

Then the Trill saw the state of the uniform Kira was wearing. "Kira, what _happened_ to you?"

The Bajoran threw her hands in the air. "What _hasn't_ happened, Dax? I inadvertently make a date with Commander Sisko's son, then I'm walking by Quark's at the exact instant some Nausicaan mercenaries decide it's time to brawl and I have to break them up because it took at least five minutes for security to show up and send the whole lot packing, then—"

"You broke up a fight between Nausicaan mercenaries?" Dax asked, incredulous. "And lived?"

"I'm fine; Doctor Bashir saw to that," she said matter-of-factly. "My uniform's not doing so well, though. And I have nothing else to wear tonight, please help me and—don't laugh, Dax," she warned, seeing an amused gleam in the Trill's eyes.

"Who's laughing?" Dax asked, composing her features. She picked up her armful of clothes and went into Kira's bedroom, spreading everything out so they could both get a good look. "The pants won't be any help, Kira," the Trill said as she assessed the Bajoran's height. "We'll have to go with a skirt."

"Great." Kira sank down on the bed. "I haven't worn a skirt since I was a little girl at the Singha refugee camp!"

"Well, I don't think you have much choice," Dax told her calmly, setting aside all the dresses and skirts for Kira to choose from. "If we belt it properly, we can get it short enough for you to—"

Dax's very calmness set Kira's teeth on edge and she glared at the Trill. "Don't you understand that I didn't want to change at all for tonight? I don't want to look like I'm dressing up for a date."

"There's nothing wrong with dressing for an occasion."

"It isn't an occasion!"

Dax looked at Kira thoughtfully. "Is that what you meant by 'acting normally' tonight?"

"Absolutely." The Bajoran looked earnestly at Dax. "I may have started out doing this for you, but now I'm trying to be friends with Jake for myself, that's the reason I haven't backed out. Dax, he—he reminds me of a brother I haven't seen in years. I just feel a connection there, and I want to pursue it. When I told Commander Sisko that I had to have dinner with Jake and go to the exhibit, I meant it. I'd never go back on that. I won't reject him just because he thinks I meant more than I did. I'll still try to be his friend. And I want to do my best to behave as only a friend and nothing more."

Dax considered the other woman's intent expression. She had to admire Kira's resolve, but told her softly, "That's harder than you think."

"I know. And it doesn't help that I won't look every inch a Bajoran major and first officer." She lifted the hem of one of the skirts and said, "I'm going to look like—some schoolgirl!"

"If you can't change a situation, you should try to have fun with it," Dax advised.

"Have fun? In what?"

"How about this?" Dax held out a pink satin off-the-shoulder gown. "I wore this to Fleet Admiral Olorenshaw's retirement ball, it was very—" Dax stopped. Kira looked as if she was either genuinely horrified or wanted desperately to lose her lunch. "Hm. You're right. Pink would look terrible on you." Dax kept rummaging. "It doesn't quite go with your boots, anyway."

They finally pieced together a dark green skirt belted to just above ankle-length, a light shirt and a rust-colored vest. Kira looked at herself in the mirror and groaned, "I'm ten years old again!"

"You look fine," Dax assured her.

"Dax, are you sure you don't want to 'run into' us at the gallery?"

"I'm positive. Now, I expect you to return those clothes right after you're done this evening. I want to be the first to hear how it went. Okay?"

Kira took one last look at herself and sighed. "Okay."

* * *

The Bajoran slowed as she reached the Promenade level and let go of the skirt she'd held up and away from her legs to make striding easier, smoothing the heavy fabric down and taking a deep breath. Around the curve of the corridor Jake Sisko leaned against a bulkhead near the Replimat, his hands in his pockets, trying to look casually unconcerned. "Major—Kira," he breathed as he caught sight of her.

She just managed not to make a face as she plucked at her vest and asked sarcastically, "Like it?"

He swallowed. "I think you look very nice."

She felt a little mollified at his reaction. "Well, thank you, Jake." He wasn't wearing his everyday jumpsuit, but loose-fitting pants and a print shirt that looked like it might belong to his father. "You look very nice, too."

He beamed. "Thanks." Then he straightened and said, "Oh, the Replimat's closed, something about upgrades or repairs. We can go over to Quark's, if you like."

"It's a little more expensive," she reminded him. "That's fine on a major's salary, but what about you?"

"That's okay. I've got enough," he assured her.

They reached the stairs leading up to the restaurant area just as Quark came out from behind the bar to meet them. The Ferengi looked Kira up and down and clasped his hands with delight. "Why, Major Kira! May I just say—"

"No, you may not," she threatened. "Mr. Sisko and I are here for dinner. Please show us to a table."

"Of course, Major, right this way." He offered her his hand as he started to ascend the stairs. She responded with what Quark privately referred to as "The Stare of a Thousand Deaths" and he withdrew his hand, pretending to rub a spot off the railing. Kira hiked her skirt up to her knees and pushed past Quark, and Jake followed her. Quark, knowing when discretion was the better part of valor, gestured for a waiter to seat them and hurried off.

Kira and Jake sat down at a table overlooking the bar and Kira perused the menu offered to her. Jake, trying to read his menu, kept looking at Kira instead.

Kira signaled their waiter and ordered. When she looked at Jake to indicate she was done and it was his turn to order, she saw that he was staring at her, his eyes shining with a light she could too easily place after her chat with Ben and Dax that morning. He actually stammered as he told the waiter, "M-make that two," and she asked Jake a question she was sure would cool his ardor.

"So how's school?"

The young Human looked a little surprised at so prosaic a question, and then he shrugged. "Like it always is. You know."

"Actually, no I don't." Jake's eyes widened, startled, and she explained, "When I was your age I was already a part of the Bajoran underground. Before that, I lived in a refugee camp. We had informal lessons, but nothing like a school. So...why don't you tell me what it's like?"

"Um—" He seemed nonplussed, and Kira grinned inwardly, pleased that she had stopped him thinking of her as a "date" and started him thinking of her as just a person he was getting to know. "I don't know what to tell you, Major, school's just—school! Homework and teachers and classrooms and things."

"Well, what did you do in school today?"

He thought. "Nog and I had to recite a scene from 'Hamlet'that we were supposed to memorize, but Nog didn't know his lines so I recited most of it."

"'Hamlet,'" she repeated, starting to be genuinely interested. "Is that a drama?"

"Uh—yeah. It's a play by this famous Earth writer, William Shakespeare."

Kira shrugged. "Never heard of him. Is it an important drama to Terrans?"

"If it is, I'm not sure why. It's a really old play and it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with today."

"What's it about?"

He frowned. "I'm really not sure. But almost everybody dies at the end, though."

"Sounds like a Bajoran tragedy cycle," she commented, but it was already obvious to her that Jake Sisko wasn't the best student in Mrs. O'Brien's class. "What was the scene you and Nog recited?"

"I was Horatio, a guard who was a good friend of Hamlet's. Nog was another guard, Marcellus. We did the first scene of the play, where it's midnight and they're on watch and they're worried about ghosts and spirits and then King Claudius' ghost appears."

Kira was very impressed. "An Earth play with _borhyas_. I didn't think your people were as spiritual as that."

"What are _borhyas_?" he asked.

Kira considered. "Maybe the best translation into Standard is 'spirits.' When Bajorans die they enter another plane of existence, one that isn't corporeal, yet they can still walk among the living and influence events. Like King Claudius."

"Your _borhyas_—do they scare people?"

"Why would they do that?" she asked, puzzled.

"Oh. See, for us, ghosts and spirits are—scary," he explained. "They can haunt people and stuff, and sometimes people got so scared they went crazy. Horatio and Marcellus in the play—they're scared of ghosts."

As Kira thought about this difference between Terran and Bajoran spirits, their food arrived. They started eating and then Kira said, wanting to keep the conversation on him, "So tell me about your school assignment about the art gallery. What does it involve?"

Jake took out his compu-padd and punched up the assignment, then handed it to her. "The person I go with to the exhibit and I have to describe and give our reactions to five different works. Then I write them up and all of our papers will form the basis for a discussion of what art is."

"I'd like to know what your class comes up with. I don't know what art is, either."

"You don't?"

"No. I'm not even sure if art does any good, if it has a purpose besides its own existence."

"But this is Bajoran art!" Jake protested. "Doesn't that give it purpose to you?"

"Well, just because I'm Bajoran doesn't mean I automatically understand Bajoran art, just like your being Human doesn't mean you automatically understand 'Hamlet.'"

Jake had to admit, "You're right."

Kira noticed that the light in his eyes had changed. It reminded her of how her brother Nishan would look at her when she faked him out in springball for the winning point, or when they played "Terrorist" and she reached their objective first through an ingenious twist that had never occurred to him. She knew that admiring look. And, coming from Jake, she knew it meant that she was no longer the Paragon of Virtue in his eyes, but simply a person, and she was glad. It meant they were becoming friends.

* * *

Medical school had certainly never prepared Doctor Bashir for the aftermath of a Nausicaan brawl and, seven reset exo-cranial plates (not to mention cracked ribs, dislocated jaws, black eyes, shattered cheekbones, and bruises and contusions his assistants were still tallying up) later, Doctor Bashir came into Quark's for a well-deserved drink. He scanned the bar as he drank and at first he passed over the Bajoran woman and the young Human at an upstairs table. Then his eyes jerked back to the sight of Jake and Kira, finished with dinner, getting ready to leave.

"Well, what do you know?" he said to no one in particular, but Quark was just collecting the doctor's empty glass.

"Absolutely amazing, isn't it?" the Ferengi demanded under his breath. "I've been trying to get close to the major for as long as—"

"How did Jake do it?" the doctor asked, curious.

Quark snorted. "He asked her. Can you believe that? Of all the rotten luck." He put Bashir's glass back down and poured him another drink and one for himself. He raised his glass in a toast. "Women. Go figure."

Bashir clinked his glass against the Ferengi's. "Go figure." As they both watched Jake and Kira leave the bar, they heard the crash of glassware against the floor. Bashir whirled at the sound, but Quark didn't even have to look.

"Two mugs, one crystal flute and six shot glasses," he inventoried by sound alone, staring at the ceiling for patience. "The question is, 'who'?"

"Your nephew, Nog," Bashir said.

Only then did Quark turn to pin Nog with the iciest of stares. "That's coming out of your share of tonight's profits," he told the young Ferengi, who was on his hands and knees cleaning up the broken glassware.

"I know, Uncle. I'm sorry, Uncle!" he pleaded. Then, remembering what had caused his miscalculation in balance in the first place, he gasped, "But Jake—and Major Kira—!"

Quark moved off to deal with him and Bashir casually finished his drink. Then, at a discreet distance, he followed Jake and Kira down the Promenade.

The major and the young Human signed into the visitor's log at the art gallery and gravitated towards a brightly-colored canvas along the back wall.

"This one?" Jake asked.

Kira shrugged. "It's as good as any."

Jake took out his compu-padd, activated the recording device and read into it, "'Harvest,' a painting by Nio Paru." Then he watched as, in spite of herself, a smile grew on Kira's face as she looked at the painting. "What is it, Major?" he asked.

"I don't know—the bright colors...it just sort of makes me happy to look at it."

"Does it remind you of anything?"

"Nothing I've ever seen." She stepped back and studied it critically. "Actually, you know what? I remember the stories my grandmother used to tell me about Bajor, about the harvest festivals and how everyone would dance late into the night, there'd be—" She stopped, smiling quizzically. "It reminds me of the stories, of how I imagined the harvest to be."

"It reminds you of something you made up?" he asked, skeptical.

"Yes! I used to listen to her stories and imagine a place that was the exact opposite of the refugee camp. Really colorful, lots of people laughing, food as far as the eye could see, all these lush plants and flowers." She grinned as she looked at the painting.

"Do you want to record your reaction?" Jake asked, holding the padd out to her.

"Oh! Sure."

Bashir signed in and pretended to examine a painting, careful to keep Kira and Jake in his line of sight. They seemed to be discussing the merits of an abstractly drawn painting that put the doctor in mind of Gaughin on a bad day. He took a quick glance at the painting he was standing in front of and was struck by its naivete, its primitiveness. He stepped back to get a better perspective and bumped right into—

"Quark!" Bashir exclaimed in a whisper. "What are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are—and don't deny it, I know better!" Quark whispered back.

"All right then," Bashir conceded, turning back to his painting and talking out of the side of his mouth. "You'd better move away, we're too conspicuous together."

"Are you telling me what—"

"Gentlebeings," a third voice between them murmured in their ears, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. "_Must_ I instruct you in basic surveillance techniques?"

Bashir turned. "Garak! What are you—"

"It looks like a cadet review in here, with everyone clustered by the entrance," the Cardassian tailor admonished them quietly.

"Everyone?" Quark asked, looking around. To his and Bashir's surprise, several of Quark's regulars had also made it their business to follow Jake and Kira to the gallery.

"Morn!" he hissed. "Clear out! You too! And—"

Garak took a deep breath, his hand digging into the Ferengi's shoulder. "Call no attention to yourself," he instructed him in a low voice. "And position yourself for minimum exposure and maximum scope."

"What else did they teach you in spy school?" Bashir whispered, curious.

"I wouldn't know, I'm a _tailor_," Garak warned, shoving the Ferengi one way and the Human in the other.

Kira and Jake were too busy discussing the painting to notice the minor commotion at the gallery entrance. By the time they turned around, the entranceway was clear, although the gallery itself seemed more crowded now than when they'd first walked in.

"How about this one?" Kira suggested, indicating the sculpture of two people that was closest to the entrance.

Jake amiably walked over with Kira and read into his compu-padd, "'The Watch,' a sculpture by Demar Tris."

Jake walked all around "The Watch." Kira saw his expression change and she asked, "What is it?"

"Um—nothing. I just—" He shrugged, walked around it again. "You know how my mom died?" he asked abruptly.

"I...understand she died during the Borg attack at Wolf 359," she said, sympathetic but wondering what his mother's death had to do with anything.

"She and I were trapped underneath a steel beam when the Borg attacked our ship. I survived. She didn't." He reached out a hand, almost touched the metal of the sculpture. "Dad found us. This is what he must have seen."

Kira looked at "The Watch" again, and suddenly recognized pain and exhaustion and hopelessness on the features of the two people in the sculpture.

Jake's voice was very small as he said, "It must have broke Dad's heart."

Her heart contracted at the sorrow on his young face. "But you still have each other," she told him softly.

"Yeah," he agreed, his voice rough as he tried to cover his emotion. He cleared his throat and tried to compose his thoughts before he turned the padd's recorder back on and continued with his school assignment.

The Bajorans passing in the Promenade noted that Major Kira was visiting the exhibit and, curious, they wandered into the gallery to see what Kira was looking at.

The security officer at the entrance, panicked at the number of people in the gallery and knowing the four officers already there weren't enough to handle all of them, called Odo.

"It's getting a little crowded in here," Jake noted as he bumped into yet another person.

"Not just crowded," Kira told him. "Use the reflection off the sculpture to see behind you."

"Nog!" Jake exclaimed. "Nog's spying on us!"

She stepped around to another facet of the sculpture. "Check the reflection here."

Bashir was looking directly at them. "Doctor Bashir!" Jake checked as many facets as he could. "Everyone's watching us!" he whispered, appalled.

"And here comes Odo," Kira noted, "with reinforcements." Jake groaned. The Bajoran asked him, "Did you finish your assignment?"

"Yes."

There was a definite gleam of mischief in her eyes as she asked, "Do you want to try a few tricks for 'escaping the enemy'?" When Jake nodded gamely, she pulled him down into a crouch behind the sculpture. "Follow me," she told him quietly. "I'm aiming for the emergency exit. The idea is to keep something between you and them at all times."

She looked behind her and to the side, saw Demar's "The Rescue" just a meter or so away and was glad Odo had been right about the sculptures offering so many places to hide. She waited for one of the security guards to move into Quark's line of sight and then scrambled awkwardly behind the sculpture. She cursed her skirt, which hampered her movements and reminded her of how Nishan would tease her about her "clothing deficiencies" as he took point for his little sister and covered for her slower, more clumsy movements.

When she collected herself, she watched Jake, who kept scanning the gallery until he judged the most people were distracted from looking in his direction, and then he moved smoothly and silently to crouch beside her.

"Very good," she said, impressed, and Jake looked pleased and embarrassed at the same time. "Come on." They darted behind two more sculptures and then they were at the emergency exit.

"Okay, cover for me," she said, and removed a small panel, trying to deactivate the door alarm.

"Major—" Jake said in a strangled whisper, but before Kira could react she found herself jerked up by her elbow and facing the baleful stare of Security Chief Odo.

"Why are you vandalizing the gallery security system?" he demanded.

"We're the reason everyone's in here, Odo," she explained in a low voice. "If we could just leave without kicking up any fuss, you can disperse the crowd."

Odo grunted, took out a magnetic key and deactivated the lock. "First left turn, straight 20 meters, door to the right. You'll be back out on the Promenade near the Temple."

"Thanks, Constable!" Kira said, but he was already pushing her and Jake through and closing the door.

"Well, what now? Is there anything else you'd like to do?" Kira asked.

Jake offered, "Did you want to go up top? I think there's a ship due through the wormhole soon."

"You're right. That's perfect. Let's go take a look at the Celestial Temple."

A slow, ragged procession followed them, stopping to look in shop windows when Jake and Kira paused, moving on when they did.

* * *

A sigh escaped Kira as the Celestial Temple irised closed. She turned and looked at Jake. "Now, _this_ I understand. Art—well, that's something else."

"Visiting the exhibit was no help?" he asked.

"Well, I think I have a better appreciation of it, now that I've studied five of the works and had to describe and react to them. But I still wonder why someone would risk death to save artworks like those."

"Has someone? I mean, died to save the paintings and sculptures?" Jake asked.

She looked up at him, smiling at his keen observance, and noted that he didn't react to her smile in the way he had before. As a friend to a friend, she told him about Nishan.

* * *

After Dax's holotape flickered out for the third time, this time coalescing into a four course Argelian dinner, Dax decided enough was enough. She closed her eyes briefly, visualizing the circuits Chief O'Brien would need to work from in order to affect the systems he was, and decided he had to be at the power juncture nearest Upper Docking Pylon One, on the walkway above the Promenade.

The Trill noted with interest the increased activity on the Promenade as she walked towards the stairway leading to the power juncture. She caught sight of Bashir ascending that stairway and she caught up with him.

"Good evening, Julian," she greeted him from behind when she reached the top of the stairs. He jumped, startled, and turned as if to see who'd caught him.

"Jadzia!" he said with what seemed like relief.

"What's wrong?" she asked with a smile, amused by his behavior.

"Oh! Nothing. Really," he assured her. "It's just that everyone's been after me all night about my surveillance techniques, so I'm a little—"

"And who are you spying on?"

"Jake Sisko and Major Kira," he pointed out. "Come on, we can—"

Dax looked where he indicated and saw, not only Jake and Kira, who seemed to be having a fairly serious conversation, but that the increased Promenade activity had the young Human and the Bajoran major as its focus.

"You've been following Jake and Kira?" she asked, incredulous.

"All evening," Bashir confirmed cheerfully. "And so have Quark and Garak and Nog and Morn and—"

"You mean to tell me you—" she said, her voice rising, "—that all of you—" Bashir made shushing motions but Dax impatiently batted his hands aside. "—that the whole _station_ has nothing better to do with its time?"

"Of course not," he protested.

"So since when did being on the elevated walkways become a spectator sport?" She shot a laser-sharp stare at Quark, who was approaching Kira and Jake from the other direction. "Well, Quark?" she demanded. "Since when?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Lieutenant," Quark asserted stoutly, pretending interest in the view outside a portal.

"But, Dax—it's Kira Nerys and Jake Sisko!" Bashir protested in a whisper.

"I don't care if it's an Aldeberan serpent and a Klingon targ!" she shouted. She looked down to the people below and ordered, "Break it up! Now! You should all be ashamed of yourselves!"

Odo, who had been waiting for one good reason to move in on the amorphous crowd, gave his security guards the go-ahead to disperse everyone. The shapeshifter himself headed straight for Dax, ready to lecture her on disturbing the peace.

Kira looked with wonder at the Trill, who had never before manifested anything resembling a temper. "Is _that_ Dax?"

A confused smile was on Jake's face as he answered, "It _is_. It's Uncle Curzon!"

O'Brien popped his head out of the Cardassian version of a Jeffries tube at the sound of the commotion. When he saw people and guards converging on a defenseless-looking Major Kira and Jake Sisko, he swung himself out and hurried the Bajoran and the young Human into the tube.

* * *

A protective grille over an access hatchway popped out of the Habitat Ring wall about a meter above the floor and out tumbled Jake Sisko. He scrambled out of the way as Kira Nerys closely followed him out.

She landed with an ungraceful fall as her foot caught in her skirt. He knelt down beside her to help her up but she had already rolled to the far wall and was sitting upright, ruefully examining her clothing. "I don't think Dax will ever lend me anything again," she commented.

Jake only then seemed to realize the state his own clothes were in after crawling through meters and meters of access space and he said, panicked, "Neither will my dad!"

"What an evening, huh?" she asked. They looked at each other, the both of them tired and dirty and with lots of explaining to do and the thought of all they'd been through since they'd set foot inside the gallery made them both start to laugh helplessly. They struggled to stand up and, still laughing, walked slowly down the corridor to Kira's quarters.

When they reached her door she looked at him and tried to catch her breath. "Well, this night certainly won't be forgotten soon, Jake," she managed to say.

"That's for sure." Then as he looked at her he seemed suddenly to turn sober and he asked, "Any answers?"

She had to think a moment before she realized he was talking about the art gallery, and she found herself suddenly sober as well. "No."

"I'm sorry. I wish _something_ had gone right tonight," he said softly.

"But didn't we get to know each other better, Jake? That's something," she offered.

He smiled a small smile. "Yeah. That's a _lot_." Then a troubled look crossed his face. "I just—I thought I could help you somehow. I guess I'm not very good at that sort of thing."

She looked at him frankly. "I don't think anything could have helped me understand what art meant to my brother. The very last time I saw him we got into a fight about it."

"What did you say to him?" Jake asked, curious.

Kira's eyes became clouded as she answered slowly, "That I was trying to help _people_ and here he was taking care of these _things_. That Bajorans were starving and suffering and dying and yet people spent years painting or writing poetry rather than putting their hand to one concrete act to help Bajor. That the Cardassians had art, had paintings and music. But had any of it stopped a single Cardassian from killing a single Bajoran? I asked him to show me the poem, the statue, tell me the name of the opera that would stop one person from killing another person and then maybe his smuggling and archiving and curating would have some meaning. Otherwise he should simply _do_, _act_ and not pretend art had power like that." She closed her eyes against the memory and said, "I said horrible things, things that must have hurt him so much. But I didn't understand." She opened her eyes. "And tonight I looked at those sculptures and paintings and I still don't understand!"

Jake tried to imagine himself living on an occupied Bajor, tried to take his brief experience with the implacable, relentless Borg who had taken his mother from him and translate it from hours into years, into the horror of seeing his mother tortured and killed before his very eyes, into the terror of being hunted and living on the run, into the helplessness of forced labor that broke your back as surely as it broke your spirit and suddenly Kira's dilemma and the art gallery and even his school lessons clicked into place for Jake. He looked at her and told her with all the feeling he could muster,

"This bird of dawning singeth all night long  
And then they say no spirit dare stir abroad,  
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,  
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,  
So hallowed, and so gracious, is that time."

Her mouth fell open a little as she realized what he was trying to give her. He said intently, "Do you see it, Major? The spirits that haunt Humans, scare them, make them go crazy—they're kept away by the bird of dawning. Art's like the bird of dawning. Art gives you a chance to examine the real world, like that sculpture made me think of me and my mom and dad. Art gives you a safe place away from the real world so that, for a while, you can see beyond the horrors to something better, like that painting of the harvest. It gives you a way to—renew yourself, your hopes and beliefs. It gives you back a fighting chance."

Kira nodded slowly, her troubled eyes beginning to clear. "Writers and musicians and painters and sculptors—they don't do what they do, work so hard at what they do, to rescue the killers or to stop injustice," she said softly. "They do it for us, for the people left behind, not just to comfort us but to inspire us and give us some strength to keep going." Sudden realization came over Kira and she looked up and up at Jake Sisko, seeing him clearly as Jake even as she saw Nishan again in his eyes. "My brother was just as old as you are when we fought with each other for the last time," she whispered. "And he knew then what you know now."

Jake felt older beyond his years, giving what he had to Kira, and younger at the same time as he felt Kira's cool hand against his cheek.

"Thank you, Jake," she said, her voice full of emotion. "Thank you so much."

He tried to shrug that weight of emotion away, uncomfortable with it. "It was pretty simple, once I put it all together," he mumbled diffidently.

She smiled at him. "I'm very glad you're my friend." She pressed her hand on his cheek, guiding his face down, and kissed his other cheek sweetly before she went into her quarters.

Jake put his hand to his face and stared at the closed door. The thought of dating Major Kira seemed very absurd and far away. The thought of being her friend seemed scary and strange but, at the same time, pretty neat.

* * *

Dax ran into Jake as the young Human walked back to his quarters.

"Hi, Dax," he said.

"Well, hi, Jake." Dax smiled gently at him. "Did you have a good time?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?" Dax fell into step with the young Human. "Want to talk about it?"

Jake shrugged. "We had a good time at dinner. But afterwards all these people kept following us—" Jake shrugged again. "Grown-ups can be weird sometimes."

Dax had to nod. "That they can." She looked at Jake's pensive face and asked, her tone light, "So when's the next date?"

"There won't be any. It wasn't really what I expected." Dax remained silent and Jake turned to her. She looked at him encouragingly and he asked, "Have you ever—I mean—have you ever felt really young, and at the same time really, really old?"

"Yes, I have," she told him honestly.

"Have you ever sometimes suddenly known something, but not known how you'd figured it out?"

"Yes, I have."

He persisted, "Have you ever felt like, maybe, somebody else was speaking through you?"

She gave him an understanding smile. "Yes, I have."

His face worked as he considered her answers, and he changed the subject. "Well, anyway, I think—I'll stick with people my own age." He sighed and added ruefully, "Whenever they show up at the station."

Dax put out a hand to Jake's shoulder in immediate sympathy. To her surprise Jake leaned towards her, wanting the comfort, and Dax put her arm around him.

"They'll come," Dax assured him.

They walked in companionable silence until they reached Jake's quarters. Dax released him and they stood looking at each other at the door.

"You think my dad's waiting up for me?" Jake asked.

The Trill shook her head. "He trusts you. I think he was the only one who wasn't following you tonight."

"You weren't either," he pointed out.

"I know." She turned to go.

"Dax?"

"Yes?"

He hesitated, then said sincerely, "Thanks for trusting me, too."

Dax smiled at him. "You've earned it. Good night."

"Good night—Aunt Jadzia. Thanks."

The Trill's smile turned into a full-scale grin as she looked into the young Human's eyes. "You're welcome," she said warmly.

Jake keyed the door open and peeked inside. As Dax had predicted, Benjamin Sisko wasn't waiting up. Jake gave Dax a sheepish grin and went inside. Dax clasped her hands behind her back and continued down the corridor.

Dax knew why Ben could sleep so soundly. It was because he knew that a certain Trill lieutenant would get all the information he needed about the evening out of a certain Bajoran major. Dax, a smile on her face, walked towards her appointment with the Paragon of Virtue.

FIN


End file.
